M2E brings holistic support to more school children in East London

Kineara’s education support programme, Motivate to Education (M2E), has recently begun work with pupils at Bigland Green Primary School in Tower Hamlets, the third school where the programme has been trialled.

Bigland Green Primary follows Redlands Primary, another local school, as the second primary school to benefit from the programme. The five pupils who recently undertook the programme at Redlands, as well as the head teacher Ann O’Reilly, found the sessions so positive that the school has invited Kineara back to take another 5 pupils through the M2E programme.

M2E is a three month, holistic intervention in which a key worker and a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist (CBT) work one-on-one with pupils who have disengaged with school and begun to show challenging behaviour. Far more than educational support, the key to M2E’s unique approach is the work that is undertaken with the family to build relationships and resolve issues in the home that indirectly impact the child’s ability to focus, learn and enjoy school. M2E practitioners have uncovered issues like overcrowding and threats of evictions that the school did not know about. Our experience in family intervention meant we could support the family to resolve these crises, as well as help the child to manage the emotional turmoil this created and the effect it had on their education.

Getting to the root of the problem is what delivers positive results at the end of the programme. Working one-on-one with pupils in school and out, M2E practitioners can offer intensive support that the school sometimes cannot provide. Holding regular sessions with other members of the family, bringing them into conversation about their child education also plays an important part in its success. It aims to get to the root of what is causing their frustrations by bringing in the family and working closely with them, both in the school and at home, create the best conditions for their child take part in school the best way they can.